We’ve seen the “If 99 doctors said…” argument, or facsimiles, used often by global warming enthusiasts in recent months. George Clooney used it when interviewed at the Britannia Awards. (See the Open Letter to Lewis Black and George Clooney.) James Cameron used it in the trailer for the upcoming ShowTime series “Years of Living Dangerously”. (Refer to the open letter to Mr. Cameron and the other executive producers of that show.) And on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart included a clip of Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress using it (See the Open Letter to Jon Stewart.)
I responded to those arguments and discussed many other topics in the posts linked above, with links to more-detailed explanations and examples…and, of course, with links to my ebooks.
The following is something I wrote for my upcoming book with the working title The Oceans Ate My Global Warming (or another possible title CO2 is Not a Control Knob). I thought you might use for it when you see the “If 99 doctors said…” argument again.
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Imagine you’re running a persistent slight fever. You visit a new clinic. The nurse takes your vitals and enters them into a computer program. A short time after the computer model completes its simulations, the doctor arrives, advises you of the computer-diagnosed ailment, and prescribes controversial high-cost medications and treatment.
You’re not comfortable with the service, diagnosis, prescription or treatment, so you check out online the computer model used by the clinic. It is proclaimed to be wonderful by its programmers. But, the more you research, the more you discover the model’s defects. It can’t simulate circulation, respiration, digestion, and other basic bodily functions. There are numerous research papers exposing the flaws in the model, but they are hard to find because of all of the other papers written by the model programmers extolling its virtues.
Of course, you would not accept the computer-based medical diagnosis from a model that cannot simulate basic bodily functions and processes. But that’s the position we’re faced with climate science.
We need a second opinion for the slight warming the Earth had experienced. Unfortunately, it is not likely to be coming anytime soon, not until there are changes to the political agendas that drive climate science funding.
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Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday…for those celebrating. For everyone else, enjoy your day.
The best approach is to show the 99% number is a lie. Once that is done you are showing your opponent is dishonest and then you win.
Been done Richard. Made no difference.
Steven Mosher says:
Now, REFINING the theory, estimating the EXACT amount of warming we will see from doubling
is possible in TWO WAYS
…
B) run a model.
Shouldn’t that be:
B) run a properly constructed model?
Has that been done?
Stephen Hawking had been incorrectly predicted to enjoy the last months of his life almost 40 years ago – indicating that medicine isn’t quite at the same level of precision and reliability as physics (h/t Lubos Motl). Now we have alarmists suggesting that the climate “science” is at the same level of precision and reliability as medicine.
Albert Einstein:
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
If somebody has already posted this today, my apologies for repeating you.
Jimbo wrote as part of an excerpt –
“Images of the metals showed their atoms were arranged in a way that broke well-established rules of how crystals formed, a finding that fundamentally altered how chemists view solid matter…..”
That is actually a good example, as long as climate is being discussed within the confines of carbon dioxide it is certain that genuine climate research is not being discussed.
In 1990 I discover a hexagonal form with pentagonal features based on the antecedent Penrose tiling which naturally bumps up to quasicrystals and I asked for assistance in putting the helping to put the diagram in context of the tiling and crystal patterns –
http://fac-web.spsu.edu/math/tile/aperiodic/penrose/kites/goldenrhombs.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Quasicrystal
There is such a great story behind 432 Degrees and the non periodic formation of the crystals as indicative of the background conditions which prevail but this has not resonated with anyone else to my knowledge no more than the climate spectrum between equatorial climate (zero Degree inclination) and a polar climate ( 90 degree inclination) at the other end of the spectrum.
If “the 99” were always right or “the consensus” (real or fabricated) was always right then we’d still be bleeding people as a treatment for anemia.
While everything from the 1 or 3% isn’t always right or an advance, every advance started with the 1 or 3%.
Who believed Louis Pasteur at the start?
Oh, and are these “99 doctors” MDs or witchdoctors?
for me the bottom line is nobody can give an answer as to what the temps should be. man causing warming is bad but man stopping all warming is good. either it’s bad to affect the climate or its not.
and with no baseline to strive for its all a huge waste anyways.
theres a huge difference between being environmentally responsible and being a retard. and many have gone full retard on this.
I have always thought that the folks who claim CO2 was such a sensitive greenhouse gas could demonstrate that to the common folks by a simple experiment. A cheap one too as far as these things go.
Go into the desert where it is nice and flat (not sure desert really needed, just sounds like fun) and build two identical cubical structures — small houses with no roof such that the sun can shine down on them inside for several hours a day. Now put a table in the middle of both. Put on both tables a thermometer as sensitive as our technology can make that sends a continuous record out of the house via cable or something else that is automatic.
Record both setups for many days to make sure we can calibrate the two and that they are in sync. Now, introduce 1500 ppm of CO2 into one of the setups and watch the temp readings rise — or not.
I wager no rise in temps at all, but would really like to see someone try to set up a fair experiment to prove CO2’s warming capability out in the real world.
In the US at least, doctor errors (misdiagnosis, unnecessary drugs and procedures and unintended consequences) are the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://chriskresser.com/medical-care-is-the-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us
I use this simple retort, whenever I am accosted with the doctor analogy.
dmacleo wrote –
“for me the bottom line is nobody can give an answer as to what the temps should be. man causing warming is bad but man stopping all warming is good. either it’s bad to affect the climate or its not.
and with no baseline to strive for its all a huge waste anyways.”
There is an energy budget for the planet across it orbital circuit however the way latitudes across the globe spend that budget is dependent on the degree of inclination. A planet with zero degree inclination will experience benign effects across latitudes whereas a planet with a 90 degree inclination will experience extreme variations,at least if it had the same orbital traits of the Earth and the same daily rotational speeds.
What is missing from climate research is making planetary comparisons irrespective of planetary composition and distance from the Sun so therefor is a baseline even if it is ,unfortunately, ignored.
Correction to my above post at 7:48am today
Second, global temperature change is a predominantly a natural phenomenon, driven primarily by minor changes in solar output and other extraterritorial factors, and other natural variations. Earth warmed naturally to 1945, cooled from about 1945 to 1975, warmed until recently, and EARTH NOW BEGINNING TO COOL AGAIN, PART OF A NATURAL CYCLE.
markstoval:
Your proposed experiment at February 2, 2014 at 11:17 am is faulty.
Your two structures each needs to extend up to the top of the atmosphere and they need to be transparent to IR.
The IR emitted from the ground in the 15micron CO2 absorbtion band is effectively all absorbed in the lower ~100m of the atmosphere so your proposed experiment would demonstrate nothing.
Richard
I think this is the wrong approach in analysing the 99% doctor analogy. The analogy is wrong even if you are in the climate change “consensus” so lets look at it from that perspective.
The first problem with the analogy is that it typically involves death as the cost of being wrong yet I don’t think there is a single scientist that claims climate change will wipe out every single human. So, for the analogy to be representative in this respect, it cannot involve the patient dying.
The second problem is that the analogy never includes any negative repercussions of following the doctors advice. While many climate scientists claim this is also the case when implementing GHG mitigation, I doubt any economist would claim that. Therefore the analogy must include some negative consequence of following the doctors advice.
So what doctor-analogy can work under these criteria? One might be a patient with a bad knee that is getting slightly worse over time. The doctor says they can give a shot of cortisone. What is the obvious choice? There is none. It will depend on the age of the patient, how bad the pain is, how many previous injections they’ve had, etc, etc.
No doubt there are better specifics but the point is, even under the “main stream” belief in climate change, a simple analogy doesn’t fit the reality of the situation.
Some points about “99 doctors” and consensus:
“99 doctors” or “97 percent of scientists” is a classic logical fallacy, taught in freshman philosophy courses: the argumentum ad verecundiam, or appeal to authority (and you can almost always be sure that the authority appealed to is dead wrong).
In this case the argument is false to begin with, because literally hundreds of times as many scientists reject the AGW superstition, as accept it (31,000+ signers of the Oregon Petition, vs. 75 of 77 “scientists” [the “97 percent”] = that’s a 450 to 1 majority of skeptics over believers).
As for “consensus”, this is a term that has no place in scientific discourse. The most one can ever say is “I am inclined to agree with theory X, based specifically on Y and Z, so long as it hasn’t been falsified, but I will no longer believe if evidence against it emerges.” Any more definite statement of any theory is dishonest on its face.
Finally, comparing medical practice to climate science is a rather gross mismatch of utterly different subject matters and processes – not even apples and oranges, but more like apples and flatworms – another dimension to the Clooney fallacy – and ignorance.
Dudley Horscroft says “I cannot help feeling that if 99 doctors said you were dead, but you sat up and disagreed with them, this one experiment would have proved them wrong.”
No, the 99 doctors would declare you a “denier” for going against the infallible consensus.
Stephen Richards says:
February 2, 2014 at 10:48 am
The best approach is to show the 99% number is a lie. Once that is done you are showing your opponent is dishonest and then you win.
Been done Richard. Made no difference.
No, this has not been communicated to the masses. There needs to be an easy to understand, documented refutation. I have never seen that done.
Richard M –
See my post, just before yours.
Why 99 doctors, why not 364 economists?
In 1981 364 leading economists signed a letter to the London Times forecasting that Mrs. Thatcher’s fiscal and monetary policies would lead to disaster. When she attempted to defend herself in a debate she was challenged to name two economists who agreed with her. She replied that she could, and named Alan Walters and Patrick Minford. On returning to Downing Street, a top civil servant said to her, “It is a good job he did not ask you to name three!”’
Margaret Thatcher was proved right and the 364 economists were proved wrong. Because they were successful her fiscal and monetary policies are now regarded as mainstream.
Unfortunately, while economic hypotheses can be disproved in a relatively short period, it will take many decades before the ghosts of the more vocal and well-funded “Climate Scientists” arise from their graves to admit that their hypotheses to have been falsified by the evidence.
For those not interested in Super Bowls, SyFy has four dreadful “global cooling” movies, followed by Day After Tomorrow. Al Gore wrote that last one, right?
The sides need not be transparent as the measurements come with the sun overhead for several hours and so the sides are not part of the deal other than keep in the CO2 for the duration. As to extending up all the way to the top of the atmosphere, I don’t know what to say. CO2 only works in columns all the way up to space? Frack, ain’t that convenient for those who don’t want to see experimentation? Surely such a powerful, magic molecule as CO2 would show us some warming even if the walls were only 20 feet or so. Perhaps we could increase the CO2 concentration to 3000 ppm to give it more of a chance to show its stuff.
But if there is not anything left in the 15 micron band by the time the sunlight gets to earth then let us put up massive light sources overhead that emit in that band to compensate. (real world experiments can get complicated I was once told)
By the way; mother nature has been doing something like I ask for now for about 17 years and her results are that CO2 increases don’t seem to do anything.
“when you hear hoof beats, you look for horses, not zebras.”
Ah, but if you are in NorthEast Africa, don’t bother the horses, and ignore zebras be on the lookout for camels, … cause those are relatively quiet on sand…..
But if you are in the high plains in Africa, look for zebras and dodge wildebeests and antelopes, ’cause there ain’t no horses …
And if you are on the south Texas coast, the cows might be dangerous, but its the ze bra’s that will get you in trouble on Padre Island and Hippie Hollow .
This whole issue is simple for me–if 99% of those making handsome paychecks off their snake-oil franchise tell you their elixir is the universal cure for any malady, but, then, never touch the stuff themselves, then you can be pretty sure you’re dealing with quacks, rip-off artists, con-men, flim-flammers, and/or agit-prop flunkies, employed by the hive.
You know, like, how those hive-promoted loud-mouths, who put on a big show of being convinced of the CAGW peril, are, at the same time, those with the biggest tenured-troughs, NGO gravy-trains, green-washed rentier-incomes, yachts, mansions, limousines, private-jets, and standing invites to the hive’s interminable, taxpayer rip-off, party-time, blow-out eco-confabs, that could easily be video-conferenced with vast savings in CO2-spew, but won’t–possibly because videoconferencing might crimp our betters’ carbon-piggie good times.
As for the Hollywood, sell-out phonies, in on the CAGW deal, let me just urge them to PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH!–SHOW YOUR CONVICTION IN THE NEED FOR CARBON-AUSTERITY BY LEADING FROM THE FRONT AND BY PERSONAL, REDUCED-CARBON EXAMPLE. You know, use your trend-setter “star-power” to personally show the fashion-conscious, imitate-their-betters-prone peon-nobodies the way to the Agenda-21, rabbit-hutch hell-hole promised land. Otherwise, buzz-off!
This discussion with progressives pushing their catastrophic warming agenda reminds me of this scene in 2001 A Space Odyssey, called “Open the Pod bay doors, HAL”:
To me it illustrates what happens when you abuse computer programs with an agenda.
markstoval:
At February 2, 2014 at 11:53 am you ask to me
Firstly, CO2 does NOT “only works in columns all the way up to space”.
In your post you quoted from my post which you claim to be answering
And as for your asking
Perhaps, but it is damned inconvenient for people who – including me – have tried to conduct experiments. You see, one needs to use tethered balloons and sensors at intervals up to altitude and to assess with and without sunlight at short time difference (e.g. at start and/or at end of solar eclipse totality). This is required because an effect of GHGs is to change the lapse rate, and…
Oh, what’s the point!?
Richard